As special counsel Robert Mueller builds his case, relatives of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn are among those pressing the president to use his unique legal power and ‘put these defendants out of their misery.’

The fierce rivalry between the European Commission and European Council roared back to life this week, as the institutions tussled over an ambitious package of measures on the future of the single currency.

The Council pre-emptively dismissed the package — branded a “roadmap for deepening Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union” — as an unhelpful overreach on fiscal policy, and the latest stunt in the intense, and escalating, tug-of-war for control of the EU.

“It is indeed very much about institutional interests, both in timing and substance,” one senior official said, echoing a view shared throughout the 11th floor executive suite of the Council’s Europa building.

The inter-institutional battle is embodied less by the two presidents — Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk — who enjoy a congenial relationship, than by their cabinet chiefs: Martin Selmayr, the famously domineering and Machiavellian German on Juncker’s side, and Piotr Serafin, the low-key Polish civil servant on the side of Tusk.

The rivalry has been marked by petulance, vanity and pettiness.

Selmayr oversees a bureaucracy of some 30,000 civil servants. Serafin leads a team of just a few dozen who support Tusk’s role as the convener of the 28 EU heads of state and government. But on behalf of their bosses, Selmayr and Serafin are gladiators: protecting their interests, prerogatives and public images, while simultaneously defending institutional terrain in a city where turf wars are fought every day.

Selmayr and Serafin, both trained lawyers and longtime civil servants, do not particularly like or trust each other, associates said.

Serafin regards the detail-obsessed Selmayr as someone whom EU capitals view as untrustworthy, and therefore as a source of tension and unpredictability.

Selmayr regards the e-cigarette puffing Serafin as leading an operation that’s too lax, and that occasionally allows individual member countries to run amok. (Tusk and Serafin’s native Poland, which is in an ongoing clash with the Commission over rule-of-law issues, ranks near the top of that list.)

EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, center, with Martin Selmayr at the European Union headquarters in Brussels in 2015 | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

The fight over fiscal policy is just the latest skirmish.

In recent months, under Selmayr’s stewardship, the Commission has moved repeatedly to get ahead of the Council, or undercut Council initiatives, including at a digital summit of EU leaders in Tallinn. Juncker arrived armed with handouts detailing all of the digital policy proposals his Commission had put forward and blamed the Council for not acting on most of them.

Blueprint vs. Blueprint

At the heart of the rivalry are two competing, if nearly indistinguishable, blueprints for the future of the EU: Juncker’s State of the Union speech, which he delivered in September, and Tusk’s “Leaders’ Agenda,” which EU leaders authorized at a dinner in Tallinn on September 28 and approved at their summit in October.

There’s one key difference: in the State of the Union speech, Juncker formally called for combining the Commission and Council presidencies into a single position — his own, of course.

It wasn’t the first time he had raised the possibility. As Juncker and Tusk prepared to pose for a photo with U.S. President Donald Trump in May, Tusk noted, “We have two presidents in the EU.” Juncker, pointing at Tusk, quickly added: “One too much.”

The rivalry has been marked by petulance, vanity and pettiness, and the weapons of choice, unsurprising for a duel between top civil servants, include memos and reports by their respective legal teams.

In his State of the Union speech, Juncker called for a special summit meeting in Sibiu, Romania, to be held on March 30, 2019, the day after the U.K.’s withdrawal from the EU. Romanian President Klaus Iohannis readily agreed.

But it is the Council — not the Commission — that decides when and where EU leaders meet. And a month later, Tusk came back and announced that indeed there would be a summit in Sibiu, not on March 30 but on May 9, when the EU celebrates “Europe Day.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, greets the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg | Patrick Seeger/EPA

Immediately after the British referendum, the Council moved quickly to take the lead in managing the U.K.’s departure. But Selmayr reacted furiously to the appointment of Didier Seeuws, a veteran EU official, to lead a special task force as the Council’s point-person on Brexit, calling it a “power grab” and “ridiculous move,” according to EU officials. Commission lawyers argued successfully that the Commission must lead talks with the U.K., and Juncker quickly named France’s Michel Barnier as the EU’s chief negotiator.

Just two months later, Tusk convened a summit in Bratislava, issuing a darkly-worded invitation letter that many leaders regarded as too bleak. As a result, according to the Commission, “some leaders” asked Juncker to table a list of initiatives and deadlines for achieving them — a point that Selmayr wasn’t shy to make to a group of top aides to EU leaders in September last year, happily complying with the request in an e-mail the night before the summit with his own set of proposals.

The State of the Union speech has since been used by Selmayr as a sort of battering ram for the Commission to press forward on any of the long list of policy goals that Juncker laid out.

Piotr Serafin, in 2012 in Brussels, when he was Polish Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Olivier Hoslet/EPA

The slew of Commission proposals aiming to revamp the eurozone’s overall economic and monetary system unveiled on Wednesday was a classic example.

Under the plans, the eurozone’s bailout arm would become a European Monetary Fund and there would be a eurozone economy and finance minister who would simultaneously serve as a Commission vice president and chair the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers.

The Commission pushed forward despite clear signals that eurozone leaders did not have the appetite for drastic action. In a statement on the package Wednesday, Juncker showed no sign of apprehension. “After years of crises, it’s now time to take Europe’s future into our own hands,” he said.

What he meant was: it’s time to take Europe’s future into my hands. And the Council was not about to let that happen. Maneuvering to get ahead of the Commission’s formal announcement, the Council released a draft document prepared by Tusk in advance of a eurozone leaders’ summit, in which he made a case for a much narrower set of goals.

Saintixe

The sooner Junker gets it it is the Council who has the final say as the nearest body democratically elected by the people, the better.

Posted on 12/6/17 | 10:57 PM CET

Sub- Continent

Political infighting between EU’s Commission and Council will become even more evident whilst Germany remains rudderless.

Posted on 12/6/17 | 11:26 PM CET

Pexit

Tusk the Maltese candidate is a very weak president of the council, he was chosen by mutti merkel because he is a fervent bnd German agent but with all his affairs still pending in Poland he will end in jail…normally he should represent the different nations but he has even difficulties to represent his master mutti merkel…

Posted on 12/7/17 | 12:23 AM CET

François P

“There’s one key difference: in the State of the Union speech, Juncker formally called for combining the Commission and Council presidencies into a single position — his own, of course.”

No, not his own. That of his successor. Juncker has clearly stated that he won’t run for a second mandate. Anyway, it isn’t a good idea.

Posted on 12/7/17 | 9:38 AM CET

Roland

So much of the worlds problems could be solved if we still had jousting tournaments.

Posted on 12/7/17 | 10:18 AM CET

sgu66

Personally, I think that of the two approaches, it is Juncker that puts forward what the EU needs. My issue is that his approach tends to change when decisions are needed to be forced through, and he then lets the member states overrule, which leads to the worse case scenario and a fudge that develops problems down the line. If the EU is to work, there has to be a federal approach to a “super-state”, but it should not be chosen by just one man – if the MS want ever closer union they must engage to make it happen; if not then the commission has to acknowledge that rather than try to bring it about by stealth, which ultimately undermines the project. However, where MS are overruled in the direction it takes, they should have the right to stop and take a different direction, after all how can you criticise a state that does not want to be overruled by stealth rather than openess?

Posted on 12/7/17 | 11:37 AM CET

Zware

If Juncker thinks that the crises are over, while Greece is still a financial eyesore, and migrants are still pouring into the EU like there is no tomorrow, and there still is no Australian solution on the horizon, he’s got another think coming.
The next elections will show a further swing to the right, clamouring for less EU, resurrecting borders, and ousting migrants.
Nobody loves this tyrant without real power.

Posted on 12/7/17 | 1:33 PM CET

giraud

We can’t wait for next P comments of this type : perhaps remarks on MS and PS respective hair cuts or ties ?

Posted on 12/7/17 | 5:25 PM CET

Vishnou

@politico: could you envisage moving towards using normal, non-aggressive headings? Your systematic, eye-catching titles do in no way reflect the truth as it is and are, therefore, closing opportunities for genuine dialogue: on the contrary such a approach exacerbates aggressivity. Some may enjoy it but they are not worth reading or commenting on.

Posted on 12/7/17 | 6:52 PM CET

wow

I like to play ‘spot the elected person’ sometimes.

It’s dishearteneing.

elected by universal suffrage, not your mates. We know the pro-eu think ‘appointed your mates’ is the same as universal suffrage.

Poor souls, they have lost the plot, or maybe they are just ‘european’ and we should accept their diffferences… and definately leave them to it asap.

Posted on 12/8/17 | 7:53 AM CET

wow

@Vishnou

Hypocrite.

Seriously!

Posted on 12/8/17 | 7:55 AM CET

wow

@Vishnou

Either agree Politico are RUBBISH (they are) at everything ans stop taking the Brexit cr@7 seriously or suck it up.

They are worse than the gossip tabloids but more dangerous as they pretend to be serious when they are not which suckers in fools like you.

Posted on 12/8/17 | 7:56 AM CET

Az

Perhaps the Eu should try the USA plan – put a businessperson at the helm rather than a politician.